Mitsuo Iso is a Japanese animator, director, and screenwriter born in 1966 in Aichi. He's best known for his distinctive, jerky yet intricate animation style—work that's immediately recognizable once you know what to look for.
Starting in the late 1980s, Iso made his mark doing key animation on some genuinely iconic projects. Fans often cite his prologue work on Gundam 0080, huge chunks of Asuka's battle sequence in The End of Evangelion, and the tank battle opening of Ghost in the Shell as his standout moments. He also contributed design and visual effects to Blood: The Last Vampire and RahXephon, where he went further by writing and directing the episode "The Children's Night"—which he largely animated himself.
Beyond pure animation, Iso has dipped into screenwriting. He co-wrote an episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion called "Liliputian Hitcher," and later wrote and directed the TV series Dennou Coil in 2007. He's also done key animation work on FLCL, Memories, and Only Yesterday.
What sets Iso apart is his approach to what he calls "full limited" animation. In standard limited animation, you're drawing roughly one frame every two frames. Iso mixes twos, threes, and fours strategically, handling every keyframe himself without passing it to an in-betweener. This gives him total control to pack sophisticated, dense motion into an efficient drawing count—jerky and detailed all at once.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
